In essence, the Israeli government will freeze new construction in the West Bank, potentially for as much as a year, while continuing ongoing construction projects. East Jerusalem will reportedly not be part of this freeze. In return, the United States will reportedly back massive new sanctions against the Iranian government and will stop criticizing the growth of the settlements.

The State Department had confirmed yesterday that they were “close” to reaching a deal with Israel, but said that “the Arabs are more difficult to pin down.” Since all the Palestinians have really asked for is a permanent halt to settlement constructions and the US has apparently abandoned that request, its going to be a difficult road to a deal.

The ability to get those sanctions, which would in essence cut Iran entirely out of the international oil and gas market and cripple their economy, passed in the United Nations is likewise in serious doubt. Both Russia and China have previously objected to the most harsh sanctions, and this push is likely to be no different.

The majority of US citizens has delegated policy in the Middle East — to a distinct minority– those who advocate Israel's interests above and beyond the interersts of US citizens. The President and the US Congress are surely aware of the corruption that this minority has used to gain power over Middle East policies of the US. Of course, the Arabs resist agreeing to a policy that allows the Palestinians to be subjugated to Israelis who have had a policy even before Israel was established of ethnic cleansing so that only Jews could populate the land of Palestine.

As far as being pressured by Israel to advance Israel's interest In establishing economic sanctions against Iran in order to strangle its economy, this will bring only increased hatred of the US. How does the US Government explain that these sanctions are absolutely at the behest of Israel so that Israel will have hegemonic nuclear power in the Middle East. This policy will ultimately ruin the economy of the US. Those settlements must be stopped and removed from the West Bank. Israel has only the territory recognized by the UN in 1948 and those are the only boundaries that must be recognized by world powers or there will be continuous war.

Change!? Instead of implementing the policies based on the “Change we can believe in”, he is reverting to “Continuing the same old Neocon-Bush programs in a different form”.

Is he going to be remembered as a “weak” president first then as a “black” president, reducing the future chances of other blacks or minorities to rise to prominent positions?

Weak or deceptive? Time will tell us soon.

The aggressive ruthless rule of Military-Industrial-Financial complex by a few (and against the will of majority) is not in line with natural human sociological evolution and is bound to crumble someday. Dashing the hopes of millions who voted for Obama for a real “change ( to achieve the control by the “people” again) is an extraordinary disappointing action.

Extraordinary actions are followed by extraordinary reactions.

It has been annoying to watch Obama's backtracking actions. Will he act in bolder and more decisive ways in the future? (Because most are still supporting him)

"The aggressive ruthless rule of Military-Industrial-Financial complex by a few (and against the will of majority) is not in line with natural human sociological evolution and is bound to crumble someday."

i don't know of any historical basis for this comment

especially from people like us living in the single most successful incidence of colonial genocide.
look around the middle east turkey is damning up all the rivers and signing water deals with israel.
iraq's river are at all time lows, it pollution are at all time highs, desertification is going on in all its agricultural lands, depleted uranium is sprinkled across the country.
and just listen to a right wing in any of these countries u.s. israel turkey and "arabs" are a monolith and can and should all just move to mecca and Medina , or face the consequence of living on our oil. oh sure some people can stay but your gona have to live behind giant cement walls as gaza so to Baghdad and once every iraqi has there eyes scanned and given id card they will be able to travel freely between the check points. and finally a massive high way system to connect the american bases will be for exclusive American use.
the real question is how many "American made Hezbollahs " are now forming and just how insane will our country become after the next attack come.
and actualy it will be obama's fault after all the outrage at bush he could have changed any policy he wanted day one but instead he told the world "bring it on"
he told the Muslim world to get over it accept American and israeli dominance.
we have in fact sent a very loud message to the rest of the world with the election of barak obama and that "fuck off and die, we fixed our image and slaughtering you is cool again"

Obama is nothing less than Bush with a deep tan. To say that he "bows" to Israel is no joke. There was never going to be any CHANGE. Think about it. The man scurried over there, like the prototypical American political rat that he is, during the campaign. Now what in the hell does anyone have any business currying favor with such a foreign entity if they aren't beholden to or being given instructions by? It was always obvious. Now if only his enablers and fellow travellers in the press and general public would be so kind as to please drink deep of the kool-aid and leave us alone to clean up their mess in peace.

What I find particularly interesting, paulBass, is you mention the Turkey-Israel connection. Isn't this part of what Sibel was being silenced about all these years and only now can speak freely?

"What I find particularly interesting, paulBass, is you mention the Turkey-Israel connection. Isn't this part of what Sibel was being silenced about all these years and only now can speak freely?"

really i have allway had my suspicions about turkey primary based on its geographic features such as being the high lands over syria and iraq both of which are low and flat river basins. it unlimited sea access and strategic position visa vie Russia. and the the general anti arab/persian sentiment of western establishment would if wanting to dominate the area to the exclusion of russia china india and Arabia, would be the resurrection of some form of turkestan
but the edmonds transcript seem to indicate that while israel takes all the media heat turkey has many of its own regional machinations